All year in this program, we’ve been learning about Israel and its water and today we got a little taste of what people outside of this program know about these topics. While waiting at the airport in Philadelphia for our flight to Tel Aviv, my group and I wanted to ask a variety of types of people the questions about Israel, which our magazine editors came up with. The first person we approached was a middle aged white man. When we asked him what came to mind when hearing the words “water” and “Israel”, his first response was that he didn’t associate the two words together, but on second thought, he said it made him think of he Mediterranean. His responses to the next two questions – what are sources of water in Israel and what do they know about Israel’s water problem – were the same: he didn’t know. This man really didn’t have much knowledge about this topic which kind of shocked me right off the bat, but then I realized he hadn’t been through this program, so the fact he didn’t know much wasn’t that surprising. The next person we asked was an older woman. She associated “water״ and “Israel” with rivers in the desert. After a little assistance from members of my group, she said that the water sources she knew were rivers and the Dead Sea. The only thing she knew about the water crisis was that since Israel is a desert, there isn’t much water. So while this woman knew more than the man before, her knowledge was not very plentiful. The final man we asked provided the most shock to our group. When asked to associate the two words, he said “well the Israelis are probably keeping the Palestinians away from water. Actually they’re probably stealing it from them.” The body of water he knew was the Dead Sea and he didn’t really answer our last question but judging from his first answer, he did not know anything about this topic. I was really taken back by his comment about the Israelis stealing water from the Palestinians. This was just so blatantly wrong that I had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this man actually believed what he was saying. It honestly sounded like an answer we would make up during a seminar about advocacy so we could practice the ARM strategy. During seminars, we talked about ignorant people who didn’t have the facts and made Israel the enemy, but since I had never experienced someone like this before, I really didn’t think people like that were out there. This man really opened my eyes to the ignorance in this world and showed me that the advocacy strategies we’re learning really do have a purpose. I’ll be honest; I thought this activity was pointless at first, but it ended up being a really eye opening experience. We’ve been learning about the water in Israel all year and today was the first time we really put our knowledge to the test. This activity was a really great way to get a taste of the knowledge that people have about the theme of our trip.